Page 33 - Chinese and japanese porcelain silk and lacquer Canepa

The first encounter between Japan and Europe occurred in 1542/1543, during
23
the reign of Emperor Go Nara (r. 1536–1557) in the Muromachi period (1333–1573),
when Portuguese merchants arrived by accident, aboard a Chinese junk, on the island
of Tanegashima, a small island off the coast of Kyūshū. Japan, semi-isolated and then
maintaining commerce only with the Ryūkyū Islands and Korea, was involved in a long
civil war under the divided rule of feudal warlords. The ruling imperial house and the
emperor were only symbolic figureheads and had no real power. The Ashikaga shogūns
had established their government in Miyako (as Kyoto was then frequently called) and
controlled all the court administration until 1573, when the powerful warlord Oda
Nobunaga (1534–1582) eliminated this shogunate, bringing the Ashikaga dynasty
(1335–1573) to an end.
24
In 1549, the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier (1506–1552) arrived at Kagoshima
in the southern part of Kyūshū and travelled to Miyako to deliver his first sermons. 25
An anonymous Japanese textual source, dating to 1639, inform us of the mixture
of fear and fascination that the arrival of the huge three-masted Black Ship and the
first sight of a Jesuit missionary caused in Japan some 90 years earlier. It reads ‘In the
reign of Mikado Go-Nara no In … A Southern Barbarian trading vessel came to our
23 The exact date in which this encounter took place shores. From this ship for the first time emerged an unnameable creature, somewhat
has been subject of much debate among historians.
Some believe that the Portuguese arrived at similar in shape to a human being, but looking rather more like a long-nosed goblin
Tanegashima in 1542 and others that it was in 1543.
or the giant demon Mikoshi Nyūdō. Upon closer inspection it was discovered that
24 The Ahikaga shogunate, also known as the Muromachi
shogunate, was the second dynasty of shogūns. For this being was called Bateren [Father]. The length of his nose was the first thing that
this opinion, see Miyeko Murase (ed.), Turning Point:
Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan, attracted attention: it was like a conch shell. His eyes were as large as spectacles and
exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of
Fig. 1.1.1.4 View of Macao in Livro das Plantas their insides were yellow. His head was small. On his hands and feet he had long claws.
Art, New York, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 52.
the Indonesian Islands and financed voyages to Japan, and later also to Manila. The de todas as fortalezas, ciades e povoaçoens 25 Father Francis Xavier, who had recently been His height exceeded seven feet, and he was black all over … What he said could not
do Estado da India oriental
total ban imposed by China in 1557 on all direct trade with Japan, and the continuing Pedro Barreto de Resende, (plans) and appointed apostolic nuntius, left Portugal in April be understood at all: his voice was like the screech on an owl. One and all rushed to
1541 with the East Indian fleet and reached India in
raids by Japanese pirates on the China coast, enabled the Portuguese to gain a virtual Antonio Bocarro (text) May 1542 with two companions. There he took charge see him, crowding all the roads in a total lack of restraint’. Visual evidence of the
26
Portugal, c.1635 of the Christian missions in Goa and on the Southwest
monopoly of this trade. In 1586, the Portuguese Crown granted Macao the status of coast. After working for three years among the pearl- annual arrival of the Black Ship to Nagasaki and the exotic nature of the procession
Watercolour on paper, 41cm x 61cm
a municipal council identical to that of Évora. The overall command of Macao was Biblioteca Pública de Évora (COD-CXV-2-1 115) fishers of the Fishery Coast, he continued to the East of Portuguese merchants, Christian missionaries and their multitude of attendants
Indies, Malacca and the Indonesian Spice Islands.
in the hands of the Portuguese Captain-major of the Japan voyage, who spent several Finally, he proceeded to Japan. The presence bringing foreign gifts, exotic birds and animals is provided by a number of extant
of Father Francis Xavier in Japan and his Jesuit
months in Macao each year en route to Japan from Goa via Malacca. This situation missionary work there will be discussed in section Namban folding screens (byōbu), dating to the Momoyama period (1573–1615) (Fig.
continued until 1623, when the constant menace of Dutch raids in the early decades 4.1.1.1 of Chapter IV. 1.1.1.5a and b). The Black Ship also brought a variety of both religious and secular
26 Cited in G. Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of
of the seventeenth century prompted the governor of the Estado da Índia to begin Christianity in Early Modern Japan, Cambridge, MA, goods required for the Jesuit mission in Japan. The Portuguese and their attendants
27
appointing a permanent captain in Macao. 1991, p. 321; and Anna Jackson, ‘Virtual Responses: (sailors, African slaves, Indians and Malays) were called Namban-jin by the Japanese.
21
Depicting Europeans in East Asia’, in Jackson and
The Portuguese trade from India eastwards beyond Cape Comorin to Indonesia Jaffer, 2004, p. 202. Namban, literally meaning ‘southern barbarians’, was a term used by the Japanese to
and the China Sea introduced a range of new commodities carried from Goa or Cochin. 27 For more information, see Pedro Moura Carvalho, refer to all foreigners except Chinese and Koreans.
28
‘The Circulation of European and Asian Works of
In Goa – the Indian port city where East met West – the Captain-major’s ship, known Art in Japan, Circa 1600’, in Victoria Weston (ed.), After the Portuguese arrived in Japan, they took advantage of the Ming maritime
Portugal, Jesuits, and Japan: Spiritual Beliefs and
as the Black Ship (kurofune), was loaded with goods of European origin including Earthy Goods, exhibition catalogue, McMullen ban on all direct trade to Japan acting as intermediaries between these two countries.
Flemish clocks, wine glasses, crystal and cloths, as well as Indian textiles. The ship Museum of Art, Boston College, 2013, pp. 38–41. Raw silk and silk finished products were in great demand in Japan, where Chinese and
28 Jackson, 2004, p. 202.
sailed with the monsoon in April or May to Malacca, where much of its cargo was Japanese merchants had previously controlled a substantial trade of Chinese silk for
29 Japan produced silk, but Chinese silk was of superior
traded for Indonesian spices, camphor and sandalwood, and hides from Siam. Much quality. Chinese junks continued to visit Japan Japanese silver during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Once the Portuguese
29
after the Ming ban was imposed, and thus offered
of the cargo destined for China actually originated in India, such as pepper and ivory, competition to the Portuguese. According to Flynn settled in Macao in 1557, and the jurisdiction over Nagasaki was transferred from the
but the shipments also included objects carried from Europe such as lenses, timepieces, and Giraldez, 60 to 80 Chinese junks (the largest daimyō Ōmura Sumitada (1533–1587) to the Jesuits in 1571, the Portuguese not only
averaging about 600-tons) visited Japan annually
mechanical devices and prisms. Once the Black Ship docked in Macao, the cargo was between 1613 and 1640, and by the beginning of the secured access to Canton but also established a lucrative triangular illicit silver-for-silk
seventeenth century Japanese ‘red seal’ ships also
exchanged for Chinese products, including raw silk, silk cloth, floss, porcelains, gold competed with the Portuguese. Dennis O. Flynn and trade, the so-called Nagasaki-Macao-Canton trade. The economy of Macao came to
30
and musk. The ship then stayed in Macao for the silk fairs in Canton (held in June and Arturo Giraldez, ‘Silk for Silver: Manila-Macao Trade be largely dependent on the direct silk trade with Japan. The Macao authorities, in
31
21 Francisco Bethencourt, ‘Political Configurations and in the 17th Century’, in Ma, 2005/2, p. 38.
January), where as will be shown, the finest silks from central China were sold. On the Local Powers’, in Bethencourt and Ramada Curto, 30 Ma, 2005/1, p. 13; and Flynn and Giraldez, 2005, p. 37. order to preserve the exclusive monopoly on the silk trade and stabilize its selling price
next monsoon (between June and August) the Captain-major would set sail to Japan, 2007, p. 209. 31 Michael Cooper, ‘The Mechanics of the Macao- in Japan, decided that silk could be shipped to Nagasaki only in the annual voyage
22 The Portuguese initially traded in the ports of Nagasaki Silk Trade’, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 27,
the final port of call, which after 1571 was Nagasaki. 22 Kagoshima, Funai, Hirado and Fukuda. No. 4 (Winter, 1972), pp. 423–424. of the Black Ship and also devised a system of bulk sale, which stabilized the price

32 Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer Historical background 33